


O Night Divine

by blanketed_in_stars



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: rs-small-gifts, M/M, Winter, Winter Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-02 12:24:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5248178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>December 21, 1976. Solstice, stars, and a secret buried deep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	O Night Divine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grandilloquism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandilloquism/gifts).



> Originally posted at [rs-small-gifts](http://rs-small-gifts.livejournal.com)

They had kissed, once, the week before. It had been hurried and messy and underneath the beech tree in the spring, when the leaves cast dappled shadows across their faces and Remus’s chest felt hollow with the thrill of it.

He wonders what Sirius thought of him then. They didn’t mention it among the exams and the fiasco with Aubrey’s head swelling up. And then Severus nearly died and it was all Sirius’s fault, and the kiss has become something that Remus only thinks of in the late dark when he’s too tired to sleep. As he is tonight.

It is, by all accounts, a beautiful night. Remus could enjoy it, too, with the full moon half a month away—he might be able to look out the window and feel nothing but pleasure at the sight of the snow in the trees, the ice on the lake, the absolute stillness, if it weren’t for the memory of spring and a powerful longing.

And in any case the stillness is being slowly corroded by the muffled grumbling coming from one of the beds, punctuated by what are clearly curses. Remus turns from the window against his better judgment and pads over to the source. “What are you doing?” he whispers, pulling the curtain aside.

Sirius stares up at him in the middle of punching his pillow into a more comfortable shape. His hair is disheveled and his mouth falls slightly open. “Not sleeping,” he whispers back.

“I can hear that much,” Remus says as he often has, the same arch tone, as if it hasn’t been over six months since they spoke properly.

“Well,” Sirius says, and shrugs. The strangeness of the situation, like an atrophied muscle stretching again, hangs between them. “Sorry,” Sirius adds hastily. “Did I wake you up?”

“No, I was already…” Remus gestures vaguely to the window. He spends a lot of nights like this now, and Sirius knows it—because Sirius doesn’t sleep either. This isn’t the first time they’ve tossed and turned at opposite ends of the dormitory. They can hear each other bumping away at their own secret lives like prisoners on either side of a wall, with nothing to do in their cells but build the wall higher. They never speak.

Now fiddling with the edge of the curtain, Sirius says, “Hope I didn’t interrupt.”

It’s absurd, Remus thinks suddenly, this little dance they do. He’s still angry, but—there’s no point, no satisfaction anymore in keeping his distance so completely. There are some things he has to know. “Let’s go for a walk,” he says, surprising even himself a little.

There’s a pause before Sirius says, “What?”

Remus chews on his lip. “Walking. Let’s go.”

“You mean you and me?”

“Together, yes,” Remus says, somewhat impatiently, though he knows it’s unfair. He shrugs, trying to soften the blow. It’s been a while, after all. But he can feel himself shrinking back already, and who knows how long it would take for him to work up this kind of idiocy again?

Sirius goggles at him for a long moment. Then he climbs out of bed, picks up his wand from the nightstand, and looks to Remus expectantly.

“Bring a cloak,” Remus suggests, drawing on his own.

“We’re going outside?” Sirius sounds incredulous. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“I know.” Remus throws Sirius’s cloak at him. “Can we just—let’s go.”

They take the passage behind the fifth-floor statue of Gregory the Smarmy, the one they discovered in their first year, and their footsteps echo off of the close stone walls. Remus doesn’t cast Lumos, and Sirius, who seems to be taking his cues now, keeps his wand dark as well. They don’t speak, and Remus, for his part, barely breathes.

He wonders what Sirius is thinking. He apologized right up to the end of term last year, and then through letters for half the summer. Around July they finally trailed off into silence, no more owls in the sky. And then in September they carefully kept their distance, or Remus did, and as a consequence their conversation has been limited to _can you move over, please._

So it’s hard to tell, now.

It becomes even harder when he remembers the kiss, _again,_ those stolen moments that barely seem to belong in his life. Never continued, never even discussed. He wonders how much it meant then and how much it means now—if Sirius has given up, or if he ever meant to do anything about it to begin with. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe he wishes, in light of current events, that it were.

At last they come out in the brush on the other side of the lake, only a few yards from the shore, briars tangling their cloaks about their knees. Remus hasn’t been out here since the last time they were all together, planning to do something untoward to Slughorn. The memory is a clear picture in his mind, but transforms quickly to another: it was springtime then.

“So,” Sirius says, sounding tentative as they pick their way out of the shrubbery, “what are we doing?”

“Walking.” Then he hears how it must sound and amends, “I want to talk to you.”

Sirius is very quiet. Only when they’ve broken free of the brambles does he say, “I want to talk to you too.”

Remus is sure he does. Only— “Look.”

The lake spreads out before them, its solid surface gleaming in the light of the stars, made brighter by the emptiness where the new moon hangs invisible. The shine is dazzling, almost painful in the brightest spots.

“Have you dragged me out here to talk about nature?” Sirius asks, his tone light. The eyebrow he cocks at Remus suggests a joke, but beneath it, honest bewilderment.

“No—listen,” Remus says, but really he has only the faintest idea of what he’s doing, so he keeps walking, tugging on Sirius’s cloak to make sure he follows. “It’s the solstice,” he says as they set out through the high drifts.

“I know.”

“I love the solstice,” Remus continues, though he doesn’t, really. What he loves is the night, the length of it, the profound—well, the mystery of it, he supposes. But he hasn’t got any idea how to articulate that, or if Sirius wants to hear it.

But then Sirius says, “Me too.” It’s a quiet admission, so soft that Remus almost misses it over the sound of their feet crunching in the snow.

For a moment Remus wonders if Sirius is simply agreeing to everything he says, if he is as afraid of scaring Remus away as Remus is of scaring Sirius. He feels he’s been offered something, though—a handhold, a way over the wall. He inhales the frigid air. “Why?”

“Think about what it means,” Sirius says, slightly out of breath from struggling through deep snow. “It’s dark and cold—the longest night of the year—but as long as it is, it’s never going to be this dark again.”

That’s assuming the sun rises, Remus thinks, but he knows it’s mostly petulance. “I never thought of that,” he admits. There is a kind of hope to it. And at the same time, something close to fear. What if the sun _doesn’t_ rise? “Do you ever think what it must have been like centuries ago?”

Sirius doesn’t answer immediately, and when he does, it’s with a fair amount of sarcasm. “Not regularly, no.”

“I mean,” Remus explains, “before people understood about astronomy, and all they knew was that this night lasted forever. When they didn’t know if it would end.”

“Oh.” They walk several meters farther. “No, I’ve never thought about it.”

But now that he’s started, Remus can’t stop imagining the ancient people huddling beneath a wide, deepening sky, having for all the world said their last farewell to the sun. “It seems silly to worry about a lot of things,” he thinks out loud, “when it’s this dark for this long.”

He’s sure Sirius doesn’t understand—even Remus doesn’t fully understand—but Sirius asks, “What kind of things?”

He shrugs. “Secrets. Or maybe just things we hold onto for too long.”

“Got any of those?”

So that’s it—suddenly Remus sees where this is heading, what Sirius is giving him. More than just a handhold. He thinks about all the things he could let go, most of them small, a few of them monstrous. Can he leave them behind in the darkness? Does he want to? “I stole the chocolate Pete’s aunt sent him,” he says at last.

“It’s the solstice, not confessional,” Sirius snorts, but then he asks, “Anything else?”

“It’s your turn,” Remus counters, now certain he’s a coward.

“Fair enough.” A moment passes. “I’m not going to worry about my family anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” Sirius says, “they disowned me in the middle of July, so it’s only fair that the indifference is mutual.” The way he says it, though, suggests something stronger than indifference.

Remus stops short. “They disowned you?”

“Kicked me out. I’m living with Prongs now.”

Several seconds go by in which Remus struggles with what to say, how to say it—how to get it across that he’s sorry, both because this happened and because he wasn’t there. But the words stick in his throat.

Sirius gives him a prod in the back. “Keep moving, my feet are cold. And it’s your turn.”

Remus blinks and wades forward. “I’m… going to stop letting you lot use the Prefect’s bath.”

“Hey!” Sirius smacks the back of his head. “That’s blatant abuse of the occasion.”

“It’s blatant abuse of the bath,” Remus points out. “Besides, I swear it’s making me go grey.”

“I thought you were going grey because of—well,” Sirius falters, although they’re utterly alone out here. “You know. Werewolf stuff.”

“I am,” Remus says. He isn’t grey, not yet, and he wants to make that clear, only his mind is still stumbling over _living with Prongs now._ He remembers how the letters stopped in July. “Your turn.”

“Since we’re making a joke of it all, I’m going to stop ruining my potions when I’m partnered with Snivellus.”

The name sends a shock through Remus’s system, worse than the snow melting in his socks. It reminds him, with an immediacy that he could never have prepared himself for, why it’s been six months. He feels his mouth tighten and his shoulders set. For all his pity, all the regret he suddenly feels at their silence, he is still angry—brutally, undeniably angry.

They reach the stone. Remus warms it with his wand and they sit, carefully not touching. From here the entire lake is visible, and the castle with its glowing windows like closer stars. The wind sweeps across the ice and cuts through his cloak, fills his lungs with the chill of winter.

Sirius sighs beside him. Remus thinks he’s about to remind him that it’s his turn, but he stays silent, his eyes on the night.

It’s been so long since they’ve talked like this, Remus realizes, that he isn’t sure how to go any further. Isn’t sure if he’s allowed. He opens his mouth and what comes out is, “Why did you do it?”

There is no question of _it._ “I was angry,” Sirius says quietly, as he has so many times. “He kept asking, wouldn’t let it alone. I didn’t think he’d actually—”

“That’s a rubbish answer,” Remus tells him. “You can’t tell someone—you can’t let—just because you’re brassed off and—and you don’t want to talk to him anymore,” he stammers, all at once unable to get the words to make sense.

“I told you, though,” Sirius says. He shifts slightly to face him on the rock. “Months ago. I told you everything.”

Remus glares determinedly at the lake, his eyes blurring with the brilliant light. “But you didn’t think,” he grinds out. He remembers having this conversation before, only it was mostly shouted and his toes were a good deal warmer. He’d been reeling inside and out. “You just dared him, so what if he dies, so what if Remus _kills_ him, it’s only Snape, the world can do without the monster—well, that’d make me a monster too, wouldn’t it?”

“It’s—”

_“Wouldn’t it?”_

Sirius swallows audibly and lets out a long breath before he speaks. “It was stupid,” he says, his voice low. “It was really, really stupid.” He swallows again. “Remus, I’m sorry.”

He sounds, Remus thinks, as if he’s in physical pain. His own chest burns hot with something close to pain as well. “You’re sorry,” he repeats. Scathing.

“Yes, I am!” His voice _shakes,_ and Remus is so surprised that he turns. Sirius is staring at him, he sees, his dark skin flushed and his grey eyes washed to pearl by the starlight. “You’re right, I didn’t think, I’ve said it before—I’ll say it again, I’m sorry, I wish I hadn’t done it, and I won’t do it again.” He drags a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. “I can’t make things right, and you don’t have to forgive me—but I’m sorry.”

Hearing the strain in his voice, the pleading, Remus believes him. He always has, through all the long months, but as Sirius has just admitted, there’s a difference between accepting an apology and forgiving the offense. The furious gust of wind bites at his face and hands and blows snow up at the two of them even as his anger crescendos to a simple question, a void in him like the place where the moon is hiding. “Why did you kiss me?” he demands.

It is, he thinks, the truly unforgivable thing: to betray on the heels of tenderness, to plant hope and just as quickly trample it underfoot. To love and then to leave.

Sirius’s eyes widen. For a few wild seconds Remus thinks he’s going to deny it ever happened. “I liked you a lot,” he says, and what his words leave out, his eyes show plainly: a deeper truth laid bare. “I still do.” He glances away for just a moment. “I thought you did too. Like me, I mean.” Then, with the inexplicable understanding that has always existed between them—“I’d take it back if I could.”

Remus wonders at the way Sirius seems to feel his pain, as if their shared memories and worries have made it so they live in one body. Even more, he marvels at the realization that taking back the kiss wouldn’t make a difference. It wouldn’t help. And for all it’s aggravated him, he doesn’t want it gone, doesn’t want that last shining moment taken away. He wants—what he wants is—

“Sirius,” he breathes, and waits until their eyes meet. There’s apprehension in Sirius’s gaze. “It’s the solstice.”

“I know,” Sirius says, just like before.

Remus feels the fear in him again, without the sun, without much certainty at all in the long, dark night. The truth rises up in him like a flood. “I’m letting it go,” he says. “It’s gone. I forgive you.”

It stretches between them in a moment so fraught that Remus is almost afraid it isn’t real. “Oh,” Sirius says at last, a puff of white on the air.

In the past minutes, they’ve moved closer to each other; their legs are touching now. Remus smiles when Sirius does, and he can almost hear the wall crumbling. “Can I tell you a secret?” he asks. “Now that’s out of the way.”

“Sure,” Sirius says.

Their faces are mere inches apart. “I liked you a lot back in May,” Remus whispers. His hands skitter over the rough cold rock to cover Sirius’s. “That one I’m not letting go.”

“Moony,” Sirius replies, just that, and again, “Moony.”

Remus has missed that name, in that voice, in every part of himself. He closes the small distance between them and lets their lips meet again, oh, and there are icy fingers on his neck and a frozen nose on his cheek, but he’s warm down to the tips of his toes.

Sirius is smiling against his mouth as he pulls them closer to each other, pressing chest to chest. The wind ruffles their hair and stings, hard, on Remus’s skin. He thinks briefly of where the sun might be, but then Sirius cups his jaw with one gentle hand and he knows it doesn’t matter: he could live forever in this darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Blessed are the night and the darkness that blinds us.  
> Blessed is the cold that teaches us to feel.
> 
> Blessed is the pain that humbles us.  
> Blessed is the distance that bars our joy.
> 
> Blessed is this shortest day that makes us long for light.  
> Blessed is the love that in losing we discover.
> 
>      —["Prayer at Winter Solstice"](http://www.poemsbypost.com/?p=676) by Dana Gioia


End file.
